What a bright, scrappy quilt! How to quilt it? The fabrics and the design was so busy that I decided on an all-over edge-to-edge motif — squared off open headbands. I used a neon orange thread to pick up the oranges in the scrappy fabrics and to contrast with the deep blue.
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Threads used:
This quilt came all done except for the quilting — it was bound with those lovely prairie points, so all I had to do was quilt it. As usual, I started by stitching in the ditch around all the main elements and the applique pieces to stabilise the quilt. Then I did a meandering stipple in the backgrounds of the outer blocks (with a large stipple in the border, in blue thread), and vertical wonky lines (no rulers) in the backgrounds of the centre blocks. To keep the edge detail in place and prevent it from folding backwards or forwards, I topstitched about a quarter inch from the edge.
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Threads used:
I was hunting around in the bottom of some kitchen drawers the other day when I found an unopened packet of foil trays. I have no idea why I never used them back in the day, but there they were — in all their 1980s??? glory! How on earth they’ve followed me from house move to house move is anyone’s guess! (I’ve moved houses at least seven times since 1982)
Dating them is difficult, but I took a stab at it based on the information on the packet and the 87c (!) price tag.
So, how to date them… First, I looked for clues in the words and images on the front and back of the packet, then the fonts used, and finally the price sticker.
The images showed some fairly classic dishes and images I associate with stylised depictions of Australian life from the 1960s through to the 1980s, and perhaps beyond — the Sunbeam Electric Frypan, the spindly 3-legged BBQ, the styles of food (jelly moulds or garlic bread, anyone?), the plastic mugs in the picnic set… The women’s hairstyles and clothing could be anything from the 1960s through the 1970s, but perhaps not into the big-hair days of the 1980s — they all look a little more staid than that.
The measurements are all metric, so this packet must have been produced after 1974 when Australia switched to the metric system. For a period of time (perhaps one to two years?), measurements were often provided in the old Imperial system as well as metric, but this packet only has metric measurements. So it’s definitely after 1974.
That very rounded font screams the late 70s/early 80s, to me. However, I don’t have any evidence as to what font it is, or when it was widely used.
The biggest clue was the price tag. After getting over the 87c these 5 trays cost me, I saw that I’d bought the packet from Coles. And Coles had kindly printed their logo on the price tag. After a bit of Googling, I found that that style of logo was prevalent in the early 1980s, but had gone by the late 1980s/early 1990s, and was completely gone by 1991. The Victoria Library has digitised quite a lot of the Coles Myer history, including many of the annual reports, all of which have a logo on them. Based on those reports and some searches for Comalco Alfoil ads on YouTube, I estimate I purchased this packet around 1982 or 1983.
As a retail brand, Comalco Alfoil basically isn’t known in Australia after about 1990 — at least, not according to the searches I did. However, they were big in the 1960s through to the late 1980s, according to some Google searches. Leigh-Mardon, the manufacturer of the packet, were still going until they went belly-up around 2017. (As an aside, ‘Leigh-Mardon’ rang a bell with me — I remembered they produced the barcodes we used on the books in the school library I ran back in the late 80s and early 90s!!)
The other brand, of course, is Coles. When I was a kid growing up in Western Australia, there was only one Coles store as far as I can recall, and that was the big emporium (not called a supermarket then) in the centre of Perth. We lived in the country, so as a kid, the big treat the few times we went to Perth was going to Coles Cafeteria for lunch! Coles supermarkets came much later to Western Australia, possibly in the 1970s? I’d have to hunt through some of those old annual reports to find out when.
So, with a little detective work, I’ve narrowed the time frame down quite a bit to probably somewhere between 1981 and 1984 (I was living in Canada in 1986, so it certainly wasn’t then).
Of course, the bigger question is why on earth I kept them all these years!
I made this red, black, and white (with splashes of yellow) lap quilt from fat quarters and fabric scraps, using the ‘Not so crazy’ pattern from Four Paws Quilting.
I quilted it with overlapping spirals, using a yellow thread, with a meandering stipple (black thread) in the border. The background fabric is a slightly off-white cotton, with two flashes of yellow.
This quilt is available for sale from my Etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/au/listing/576596548/crazy-red-black-and-white-lap-quilt
Threads used:
I’m donating these two pink quilts I made to the McGrath Foundation (for breast cancer). The first one is made from pink scraps I joined together to ‘make’ new fabric.
The second was made from 6 pinkish fat quarters I didn’t particularly like (main top) plus other pink and yellow fabrics for the borders, and a lone deep pink square (my 6 fat quarters only made 47 six-inch blocks, and I needed 48). I made up the pattern — see below for my sketches of how I designed it. These instructions are based on 21 x 22″ fat quarters — you may need an extra one if your fat quarters are a less than this. Cut your fat quarters into long 3.5″ strips. Pick 16 random strips, pair them up on the long edge, stitch each pair together, and press the seam in one direction. Cross-cut these joined strips every 3.5″ to make 48 blocks of two squares each. Cut 48 6.5 x 3.5″ strips from the remaining fabric. Join a 6.5″ long strip to the side of a 2-square strip. For a random pattern, mix up the fabrics you join, and when you put the block together add a 6.5 x 3.5″ strip from another fabric.
I have previously donated three other pink quilts to the McGrath Foundation — two small rail fence quilts, and a big one made from a jelly roll of pink batiks.
[I spent a long weekend at a private retreat a few weeks ago, which is when I quilted this quilt (and 7 others). Therefore the photos aren’t as good because they were taken indoors, and I don’t have information on the threads used.]
This was a BIG quilt, made up of friendship blocks all signed and dated from around 2005 to 2007. For simplicity, I just decided to stitch in the ditch around all the blocks and their main elements, and then stitched a meandering stipple in the border.
(Click on a photo to view it larger)
[I spent a long weekend at a private retreat a few weeks ago, which is when I quilted this quilt (and 7 others). Therefore the photos aren’t as good because they were taken indoors, and I don’t have information on the threads used.]
I love the crispness of red, black and white, and these matching fabrics captured that perfectly. After stitching in the ditch around each block, I stitched open headbands in red thread in every second row, then a meandering stipple in black in the alternate row. I stitched the border with a meandering stipple in red.
(Click on a photo to view it larger)
[I spent a long weekend at a private retreat a few weeks ago, which is when I quilted this quilt (and 7 others). Therefore the photos aren’t as good because they were taken indoors, and I don’t have information on the threads used.]
The busy-ness of the fabrics in this quilt made me decide to do a simple edge-to-edge motif — this time overlapping spirals, a motif I think I can do in my sleep!
(Click on a photo to view it larger)
[I spent a long weekend at a private retreat a few weeks ago, which is when I quilted this quilt (and 7 others). Therefore the photos aren’t as good because they were taken indoors, and I don’t have information on the threads used.]
There was a LOT of white space in this big quilt. After stitching in the ditch around all the little squares, I then quilted it using my variation on McTavishing. It took a few hours…
(Click on a photo to view it larger)
[I spent a long weekend at a private retreat a few weeks ago, which is when I quilted this quilt (and 7 others). Therefore the photos aren’t as good because they were taken indoors, and I don’t have information on the threads used.]
I quilted corresponding motifs in each square to match the fabric used (where possible) — so circles/bubbles/pebbles in the squares with spots and dots, scallops in those fabrics, etc.
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Rhonda Bracey: At Random 